Uncharted Lost Legacy Review: A Puzzling Experience

If you are not familiar with the Uncharted series, you might want to take a step back in time and go pick up the Remastered edition of the Uncharted series as well as Uncharted 4. This game follows two characters from the past with motivations that were grounded from the previous games. Let’s take a look at how this game fairs for the series.

Lost Legacy takes place after the events of Uncharted 4. You find yourself playing as treasure hunter Chloe Frazier who teams up with ex-mercenary Nadine Ross to search for the Tusk of Ganesh before the insurgent leader Asav finds it to help rally his people into a civil war. The story of the Tusk gets complicated and as you progress through the game you discover the truth behind it all. There are a few surprises that fans of the series will enjoy. However, it’s the probably the least thrilling storyline from the Uncharted series.

To be frank, this game is kind of disappointing. It’s practically a rehashed version of Uncharted 4 as it doesn’t move the dial forward with anything new as far as gameplay, puzzles, and action. Everything you do in this game will give you deja vu as you will feel like you have done it a hundred times over in all the Uncharted games before. They do dive into supporting characters from that past that help round out Nathan Drake’s story line, but this game is so lackluster that you will wish they didn’t put it under the Uncharted brand.

It didn’t seem like Naughty Dog created something original this time. It felt like they reused a lot of the same assets from Uncharted 4. In fact, if you weren’t playing as a female this time, you could seriously just roll this game into Uncharted 4 as DLC and just have it as that. The banter between Chloe and Nadine throughout the game gets to be confusing. Their voices sound alike which makes it hard to distinguish who is actually talking outside of the cinematics.

With out giving away too many spoilers, the story is mediocre at best. Lost Legacy takes about 6 hours to complete. The first half of the game is very repetitive. As you drive around looking for three temples with a easy puzzle to solve in each one. While the second half of the game makes up for all the times you questioned your decision to make this purchase. The second half includes high energy and explosive game play, However, you have to make it that far to enjoy it. The drama that unfolds between Chloe and Nadine is incredibly lame. Daddy issues from the two are incredibly high and on display. If you want to see two chicks have emotional breakdowns, I would suggest going to your nearest campus bar as it might be more cost effective and entertaining.

To help extend the time it takes you to beat the game, they place plenty of hidden collectibles throughout the map. They serve no purpose though and they aren’t worth the time to find them. Even at one point they will practically tell you where they are. If it wasn’t for the awesome graphics and fun gun play we all love from the Uncharted series, this game would be very shallow. Each puzzle you come across is identical to one you just did 20 minutes ago and they all are mind numbingly easy.

The biggest improvement Lost Legacy made is the stealth play. It does have more of a Metal Gear Solid feel to it where you can pick up a silenced pistol and dispose of guards. The motion detection is a lot more sensitive this time around. No matter what difficulty you play on, if you are detected get ready to fight for a few waves. They even incorporated lock picking in this game. When you get tired of picking lock after lock after lock, you can try each encounter on a more difficult setting to pick more locks!

Naughty Dog is asking you to shell out forty dollars for this game. The big question is, is it worth it?? One word…NAH, Give it a few more months and wait till this sucker is at 15 bucks at most or check it out as a rental. Remember the game The Order 1887? Yeah man, I would hate to put it in that category of disappointment as it does carry over the multiplayer and fun survival mode from Uncharted 4, but damn this game doesn’t live up to the hype.

One thing is for sure, it’s a beautiful game, but if you are a fan of the series or just getting started, you might feel pretty disappointed. Sure, it plays like an Uncharted game, but it lacks any new creative content. Lost Legacy reuses a lot of material from the original series which makes it harder to fall in love and identify with the main characters in this story. In my opinion, the Uncharted series should have ended with Nathan Drake’s story. You can’t blame Naughty Dog for milking the cash cow, but now they have painted over the past with a game fans necessarily didn’t need.

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2 comments

To a degree, I can agree with what you’re saying in the sense that it is a game with repetitive gameplay. However, I didn’t actually mind that in most cases seeing how as a huuge fan of the past four games, I would have loved any additional storyline from Uncharted even if it’s more of the same – I guess if it’s not broke, don’t fix it right? My only complaint was that I would have happily ended the game after all that driving around or just having the second part of the game once they enter the old city. The length of the game was well worth 40$ in my opinion though. I don’t think this is a disappointment at all – it plays well, it’s got gorgeous graphics and this side story of Chloe and Nadine is really well written for a game that’s only six hours. I was even surprised that Sam popped in in the second half and thought the friction between he and Nadine added some hilarity. Even if the puzzles weren’t as head scratching as ones we’ve seen in previous games, I thought the shadow puzzle and the 3 rooms with the mechanical soldiers took a few times to play through before beating it even if the solution sounded easy enough. I think it was much of the same that past Uncharted games covered however putting Chloe as the protagonist was a breath of fresh air. You always expect Nate to do the right thing but Chloe has looser morales and it was really interesting to see her change that in this game.